But I must confess that I find the lack of participation in the Reading Room perplexing.

If it would be helpful, I'm happy to regularly (on perhaps a weekly or fortnightly basis) publicise upcoming RR discussions.

I've been wanting to put more scholarly Tolkien on our front page for quite a while now, and I think this would be one way to share our deep collective Tolkien knowledge with other readers of all levels ... and perhaps draw some of them into the discussion as well.

Happy to discuss/throw round ideas to give you guys more profile.

From my own point of view, I would dearly love to participate, but it's hard to find the time between operating chat, posting front page and having a real life to do much more than dip into the boards now and then.

But there are smart cookies here, and I enjoy when I do get a chance to read the discussions. TheOneRing.net Senior Staff IRC Admin and Hall of Fire moderator